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4/2/10

Sourdough - Part 1

My Sourdough experiment has begun! I ordered a packet of dehydrated sourdough from Old Sourdough, as Gina on the HomeJoys blog had done. She shared that she had experienced many failures with sourdough and various starters, but finally had success with this! A packet of dried up starter? I know, sounds strange. Looks even more strange when it arrives. But, it was free, and Gina inspires me, so I decided to give it a try.

Here you can see how it arrived ... 1/2 a teaspoon worth!I followed the directions which were fairly simple. Mix the starter with 1/4 c. water and 1/4 c. flour, cover, let sit, come back 24 hours later.

The starter went from looking like pancake batter to a spongy texture as of this afternoon. My next step was to feed it again. I downloaded a mini-instruction manual off of Old Sourdough's site to keep me on track. I will be stirring, feeding, and watching over my starter for the next 48-72 hours. At some point in the next three days, my starter will be ready to attempt my first loaf! I have also tried a few starters that have been given to me. Perhaps I never tried the right recipe, but my sourdough never came out like, well, sourdough. It was always sweeter and didn't have that crusty crust you would expect. I have high hopes for this one! We will wait and see ...

4 comments:

I went to the website and got so excited that I went ahead and requested some starter. I also started reading the e-book...it says to mix the starter with water and bread flour. Did you use bread flour or regular flour?

Sarah, I used just all purpose flour. HomeJoys used whole wheat in hers, but I wanted to start safer and might switch to 1/2 and 1/2. I need to blog either later today or tomorrow, but my first attempt came out pretty good!

I was telling Pam about it and she said that she has a recipe that doesn't require using the Kitchen-Aid or hand kneading. I will ask her for a copy of the recipe and pass it on to you if you are interested (I don't have a Kitchen-Aid, so I am very interested)!

Who is Bird in the Hand?

We are a group of women trying to seek after the heart of God in all that we do. We wanted to have a place to encourage one another in our calling as wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters. Whether it be sharing a recipe, a link, a story, or a challenge we hope to do it all for the glory of God. We will include triumphs and well as failures and encourage you to do the same.